About Us

How we work

The time is right for a closer look at sub-Saharan
Africa. Even if you think Africa is a
minor part of a company’s earnings—or if your portfolio doesn’t have a
weighting there—it’s not too soon to get up to speed on the massive changes
that are occurring on the continent.
Our job is to streamline and simplify this process for you.

Everything we do is about connecting themes to portfolio
impact. We generate ideas for investors
looking to participate in Africa’s growth and steer clear of avoidable
risks. We focus on companies but we
don’t make specific stock recommendations.

Here’s how we spend our time

In Africa:

· Go to
Africa regularly to meet local players and multinationals, public and private
companies, government and capital markets officials, business leaders,
nonprofits and local investors

· Talk to
every businessperson we can find about their operations and strategy in
Africa

· Visit
companies at their offices, in factories and at conferences

· Examine
labels on the products on supermarket shelves to figure out who the key
international and local players are at each price level

· Drive
around cities and look at who is selling what, who is advertising, where new
buildings and infrastructure are going up, and which brands have distribution
and visibility at the street level

· Observe
residents going about their daily business to see if we can discern the real
level of spending power and the buying preferences in a given market

· Talk to
or read works by people with innovative ways of thinking

· Speak
with government or capital markets officials and policymakers about their
vision for a country’s future

· Find
our way out of major urban centers into less developed areas

Stateside:

· Attend
macro- or policy-oriented conferences such as the World Bank/IMF annual
meetings, and more focused gatherings where relevant issues are debated

· Cull
through news stories and information flow to find data points to support or
challenge our investment thesis and identify new investment themes

· Talk to
US-, European- and Asian-domiciled companies about their Africa strategy and
operations